1. Technical Field
The present invention relates to a liquid electrophotographic printer and, more particularly, to a developer liquid squeegee apparatus for removing excess developer liquid sticking to and wrapped around the recording surface of a photosensitive medium.
2. Related Art
A liquid electrophotographic printer develops a latent electrostatic image formed on a photosensitive medium using a developer liquid and prints a desired image.
In such a printer, a development region having substantially the same width as that of a development roller of the printer is formed on a photoreceptor belt. Developer liquid sticking to the development region is compressed by a squeegee roller, and only the developer liquid required for development of the latent electrostatic image remains thereon, with excess developer liquid being removed.
However, a problem arises in that the excess developer liquid tends to be pushed outside the development region of the photoreceptor belt by a wrap-around phenomenon in which the excess developer liquid moves to both edges of the squeegee roller along a gap between the squeegee roller and the photoreceptor belt. In that case, an air nozzle can be used to spray air toward the wrap-around developer liquid, thereby preventing the wrap-around developer liquid from flowing outside the development region of the photoreceptor belt.
However, a further problem arises in that, if the air is not properly sprayed or the air spraying force is weak due to clogging of the air nozzle or malfunction of a pump associated therewith, the wrap-around developer liquid flows toward both edges of the development region of the photoreceptor belt. Thus, the wrap-around developer liquid results in developer liquid contamination and degrading of print quality in the printed image. In particular, in the case of a color printer, discoloration of the printed image may occur due to mingling of differently colored inks.